In a world of meta-humans with fantastic powers, it's hard to be the muggle and feel useless. However, Emma Robledo is clever and detail-oriented, always coming up with a plan of attack to move forward. While not trying to save the world/their nation, Emma also wrestles with her feelings of attraction or lack thereof in a sincere questioning arc (as I haven't really had this experience, it doesn't seem like my place to determine whether or not it's authentic, but! it does feel like it progressed during the book at a natural pace). As far as I can tell as an outsider, this feels like good ace-spec representation, something much-needed for young readers who might not have the words/tools yet to describe how they feel (or, for grownups new to the concepts too!)

The end is a hopeful note, but still cliffhanger-y- can't wait to see how C.B. Lee wraps this quartet up!

The most minor of distracting thoughts: I don't really have a good grasp on how fast vehicles can move in the future of 2123, so while our heroes use abandoned pre-Collective highways to get between places, I still sort of feel like it would take time to go from Nevada up into Idaho-ish, then to Louisiana and finally New York? Plus Canada? Travel time is mentioned, but not dwelt upon because otherwise we'd have the ceaseless camping of HP 7, but our characters sure do move around a lot. ( )

diverse teen superhero fiction with LGBTQAI interest, bisexual author.
I like seeing so many queer characters, but wasn't that into the action, action, characters, action (I have a hard time keeping track of multiple characters I've just met, but might do better if this were in graphic format?) and wanted to hear more about Emma's (ace) character and how her relationship with Bells develops--those bits were relatively few and far between. I wasn't feeling very invested in the characters so I stopped at page 102. ( )

Like the earlier books in the series, Not Your Backup is a fun post-apocalyptic superhero-themed story with plucky underdog teenagers discovering massive corruption and doing their best to reveal it and take it down - very YA, I suppose, and doesn't stray too far from YA themes or familiar patterns for current teenage life despite the futuristic setting. In this installment, the focus turns to the non-superpowered member of the friend group, Emma Robledo, and how she finds her place as strategist and with strengths that lie in not being a meta-human. Picking up from the end of Not Your Villain's romance plot, she is also trying to figure out her feelings for Bells and romance in general.

I can't remember if Sidekick or Villain had pacing or editing problems, but as much as I enjoy the series, Backup's timeline and other settings were really confusing. There is a meteor impact projected for November, and much of the story takes place traveling across the country in the summer - then suddenly it's November. I tried to not worry about timing or location, but I was never quite sure about it. There are a lot of characters, too. They are all carried over from the earlier books, but I struggled with remembering who they were, even with the small narrative reminders. It seems like Backup is meant to be read immediately after Villain so the intricacies of the plot are fresh.

I'm kind of being down on the book mostly because I liked it a lot and saw where it could have been so much better with a little more care.

One thing that I had expected to dislike but didn't was the plotline where Emma explores her relationship with Bells and figures out that she's on the asexual/aromantic spectrum. The conversations and explanations did seem a little After School Special, but the way asexuality, aromanticism, the spectrums, and queerplatonic relationships are described is inclusive and forgiving and ultimately one of the best ways I've seen any of it described. I would have liked to have had this book when I was a teenager. It isn't a book about being ace-spectrum, it's about Emma trying to find her purpose and place in the world, and wanting to put words to the kinds of relationships she wants and feels capable of is one of the way she does that.

Other subplots continue to be developed. There will be a fourth book from Abby's pov, and we'll find out why she seems to be in a manic bipolar phase throughout this one. Bells has continued to grow stronger and his family's farming connections are given more depth. The whole conspiracy between the Collective's government and the League of Heroes is expanded upon, of course, with some grisly (offscreen) deaths.

Do note that there is a major on-page natural disaster in this book that involves a huge fire (I'm not actually sure how the Squad survived it, come to think of it? i guess that's another editing miss). It was signposted but I wasn't expecting it because of the timeline vagueness and the doubt about official sources in-story, and I found it difficult to read those pages. There is a content warning for the book, but this wasn't included, likely because they didn't think it was necessary or they thought it would spoil the plot too much. ( )